Menu

DRONING ON AND ON

There’s an obsession with flying things in Japan at the moment. The drones have landed – but not where they should! It all started when one landed on the roof of Prime Minister Abe’s office. That one was worrying as it had a container attached with the radio-active symbol on it and actually contained contaminated soil from the Fukushima area. The perpetrator has now been arrested and charged with ‘forcible obstruction of business at the Prime Minister’s office’. He said that he was protesting about the Government’s nuclear policy and was inspired to use a drone to make his protest after seeing videos of pizza deliveries using drones.

My former workplace was also the scene of an unauthorised landing when a drone from the nearby Tokyo MX TV studios mistakenly touched down in the grounds of the British Embassy offices and houses. No offence committed or intended so I believe; it was just a case of pilot error on final approach.

It is festival season again in Japan with many local shrines and temples staging events where locals dressed in traditional garb carry portable shrines through the streets and ceremonies are performed in the sacred sites. A group of formally clad priests in Nagano prefecture were very surprised when their procession was interrupted briefly by the arrival of a more modern invention skidding to a halt at their feet. But with typical oriental imperturbability they carried on.

In Yoyogi Park, which was last year closed due to an influx of dengue fever carrying mosquitoes, there are now signs banning the use of the mechanical pests.